David Chariandy wins Writers' Trust fiction prize for 'Brother'

The Canadian Press</span>
Published Tuesday, November 14, 2017 8:44PM EST
Last Updated Tuesday, November 14, 2017 8:45PM EST

TORONTO -- David Chariandy's novel "Brother" has won the $50,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

"Brother" (McClelland & Stewart) is a coming-of-age story about two siblings confronting violence and prejudice in a Toronto housing complex during the summer of 1991.

Jury members, who selected "Brother" after reading 141 submitted novels and short story collections, praised Chariandy's "stunning lyrical writing, pitch perfect pacing, and unexpected humour."

The $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction went to Toronto-based writer and doctor James Maskalyk for "Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine" (Doubleday Canada).

The book examines emergency rooms in different cultures, focusing on Maskalyk's work in hospitals in Toronto and Addis Adaba, Ethiopia.

Sharon Bala's short story "Butter Tea at Starbucks" won the $10,000 Writers' Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, given to an emerging writer whose work is published in a Canadian literary journal.

The other awards -- each worth $25,000 -- honoured authors for their careers to date, rather than for one specific work.

Saskatoon poet Louise Bernice Halfe received the Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize for her four collections detailing her time in residential schools.

Thunder Bay, Ont., author Ruby Slipperjack, who has written about Anishinaabe cultural traditions, won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People.

Diane Schoemperlen won the Matt Cohen Award and Billie Livingston won the Trust Engel/Findley Award for their bodies of work.

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